Alone………..At Last

During the next three weeks, I will be using this blog as my private diary. For the first time in my life I am all alone. How I reached my age without ever being alone is beyond me but it is pretty much true. I wasn’t alone in college. Then, I married my first husband and at first he rarely traveled for business. The one time he did have to be away over night was Tuesday, November 9, 1965. I suppose you are wondering how I can remember that date so well.

That was the night of the big Northeast Blackout, I was in the initial months of my first pregnancy. I curled up in my bed, with my darling little apricot poodle, Chablis and began reading InCold Blood by Truman Capote. Then the phone started ringing, Oh, what I haven’t mentioned is that we were living in New Haven, Connecticut and that was the only city in the Northeast to retain power. Someone, in a little room somewhere in that town saw what was happening and flipped a switch so we had power.

One after another, my parents, my in-laws, my husband and assorted concerned friends called and each one was shocked to hear I had power. I just went on reading, but that may have been the first night I had ever spent on my own.

As of June of 1966, I always had a small companion my first son, Stephen. Our little family moved around often as my husband climbed the corporate ladder. The family grew first with the most wonderful housekeeper who joined our family in Jacksonville, Florida and just automatically went wherever we went from there. We were on to Columbia, South Carolina and then back to Connecticut just ten days before out darling little Susan joined the group. My husband was by then traveling a lot, but I was never alone in my house.

Sadly, that marriage failed, but still never alone. The kids were little and I don’t remember my ex ever taking them overnight. So, it was me, the kids and luckily I was able to keep my wonderful housekeeper, Martha.

I won’t take you year by year, suffice it to say, I am sure I had a few nights alone but there were always the kids and a boyfriend or two. The first year I might have been alone was the first year Susan went off to overnight camp 1977, Stephen had gone away for two years by this time, so maybe it would be just me. That was the summer I met my now Husband and by the time the kids returned we were planning to marry.

We married and our son Scott was born right after our first anniversary. Full house until one by one they went to college. Now married thirty-seven years and rarely separated, my husband has gone to South America to visit his brother for three weeks.

Alone at last, I’m not afraid to be alone in my house, I am just wondering what it will be like to be on my own. Sort of a test, a rehearsal for widowhood. You’re going to find out with me how it goes. I know many of my friends have been on their own for many years, either widowed or divorced or never having married at all. I am sure everyone will be watching to see how I do and as will I.